Rudbeckia Lockdown
Black Conté on paper (145 × 116cm) 2020
In Rudbeckia Lockdown, the flower becomes more than a botanical subject; it emerges as a presence, a force. Created during the first lockdown, from a plant grown from seed in the artist’s own garden, the Rudbeckia is rendered at a scale that overwhelms and surrounds the viewer. Its petals hover between stillness and movement — caught mid-flutter or suspended in time. At the centre, the textured cone appears almost planetary: magnetic, other-worldly, impossible to ignore.
Though anchored, the drawing hums with restlessness. Petals strain toward the edges, weightless, pressing beyond the frame. The flower refuses confinement, echoing both natural proliferation and human longing for release. What begins as observation slips into channelling — an intuitive process in which the artist sought not simply to depict, but to translate energy.
The choice of black Conté, rather than graphite, is crucial. It yields velvety blacks and luminous erasures, at once solid and mutable.
The result is a field of energy and growth — a drawing that records not only the life cycle of a flower but also the artist’s experience of confinement, attention, and the search for vitality during a suspended moment in time.
Big Love
Black Conté on paper (145 × 116cm) 2021
Big Love magnifies a bloom to monumental scale, its form opening outward in a gesture that is both tender and commanding. The drawing captures not only the structure of petals and core, but also a sense of embrace — the expansive reach of the flower as it unfolds into space.
The work radiates warmth and presence. Its velvety blacks and delicate erasures describe movement and depth, but also hint at vulnerability, as if the bloom holds both strength and fragility in balance. More than a portrait of a single flower, Big Love becomes an emblem of resilience and generosity, a celebration of growth and connection in the aftermath of isolation.
Rudbeckia Flowers in the Garden
Black Conté on paper (145 × 116 cm) 2020
This large-scale drawing places the viewer within a dense field of Rudbeckias, their stems and petals interlacing to form a living architecture of growth. Made during lockdown, it reflects the artist’s daily act of watching these flowers develop from seed — a rhythm of unfurling, flourishing, and fading.
Here, observation expands into immersion: the garden is no longer backdrop but stage, crowded with forms that jostle, lean, and press outward. The interplay of darks and luminous erasures builds a surface alive with texture, where energy circulates in every direction.
Rudbeckia Flowers in the Garden is both intimate and expansive — a portrait of a small backyard transformed into a universe of vitality, offering refuge and renewal at a time of restriction.
